Research On The Career Development Of College Counselors

For higher education in China,the fundamental issue at present is "students". Meanwhile,for comprehensive reform in education,the key factor is "morality education for students",the essential requirement of which is to "regard overall education as foundation, morality education as priority and ability education as key point to make students socialism builders and successors with all-round development in morality,intelligence, physique and art". From the aspect of university counselors,the "duel identity"(being teachers as well as management staff) of them determines that they must shoulder the work of cultivating talents as well as ensuring their morality development. To carry out the work, university counselors should stick to the basic principles when educating students — attach great importance to enhance common ideological foundation, guide students to follow correct political stand and direction, nurture their morality,mold their character, enlighten their sense of historical responsibility, establish their correct values and lead them to associate their own development with China's dream of great rejuvenation. In 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the CPC passed Decisions of Central Committee of the CPC on Several Issues Regarding Comprehensively Deepening Reform, which made strategic plans for deepening education reforms on a new historical starting point. Hence, to help carrying out the educational policy of the CPC and the ideological and political education for university students, it is of great importance that we improve the overall quality of university counselors and ensure the healthy and sustainable development of their career.This paper, named as The Study on University Counselors'Career Development, in view of the regular patterns of career development and the characteristics of university counselors'career,raises a "six-stage theory" as regards university counselors' career development—"starting stage in the early days of new China, progressing stage in 1960s, suspending stage in the Cultural Revolution, forming stage after reform and opening-up, steadily-developing stage in new age and further-developing stage after the 18th NCCPC". From the set-up of university counselor system, with economic development and higher education reform, the career of"university counselor" has been evolving,demonstrating features of different times. In 1952,Ministry of Education brought up the idea of setting up "Political Guidance Office" with several counselors working there. In 2004, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council passed Suggestions for Further Improving the Ideological and Political Education for University Students (The 16th Document for short). In 2014, Standards for University Counselors' Career Ability (Provisional) (The 2nd Document from Ideological and Political Department,Ministry of Education [2014]). In this process,the career of university counselor has been developing with the change of international circumstances, national conditions, the CPC status and the development of higher education. However,in terms of the career's own perfection, university counselors' career development has not formed complete knowledge system, professional standard for the field nor the evaluation system recognized by the whole society yet. Therefore, it is necessary that we construct a system for university counselors'career development with clear top-level design, systematical planning, constructing direction and overall regulations.Considering the realistic appeal of university counselors' career development, the paper probes into the support from different theories for university counselors' career development,including "human theory in Marxism,theory of social division of labor in Marxism,human resource management theory, career development theory and theory of ideological and political education from the CPC". The paper explores rules of university counselors' career development from aspects of developing pattern, role evolvement and function and summarizes functions of university counselor as "ideological and political education, students' affairs management and counseling". Besides, on basis of promotion stages of "primary university counselor, intermediate university counselor and senior university counselor",the paper proposes "flat management model for university counselors" and "management model with university counselors' career description system". From the perspective of process,university counselors, career development has undergone three patterns — "part-time counselor and full-time counselor — part-time class advisor and full-time counselor — class advisor — tutor".Triple roles of full-time counselor, class advisor and tutor put emphasis on different aspects of teaching and management,which meets the demands of students' development in different stages in terms of characteristic and innovation ability,making this pattern an inevitable trend."University counselor" is a specialty requiring careful construction, a career requiring attentive development as well as a cause requiring constant pursuing — not everyone can do this work well. In fact, present system and mechanism in China cannot fully meet the demand from the changing situations and the need for the construction of university counselors as a talents group. As we know,the criteria for considering a career "specialty" is that it demonstrates special characteristics. How's the sense of belonging among university counselors? How can we set up management mechanism, training mechanism, evaluation mechanism and guarantee mechanism considering the career features of university counselors? How can we deal with the effect factors of university counselors' career development and ensure their steady and sustainable development? To answer these questions,the paper sorts out the positive and negative aspects of university counselors' career development. On basis of difference analysis,six hypotheses are proposed, which are proved through study model construction and in-depth interview from macro view (circumstance factor), medium view (group factor) and micro view(personal factor). By empirical analysis, the paper puts forward the strategy for university counselors' career development: the first is to find position and developing path for them, the second is to establish standards for their career development, the third is to build proper discipline system, and the fourth is to form strong organizations.On basis of the analysis of requirement and situation of university counselors' career development,the paper proposes "university counselors'career development system" and"scientific management system of university counselors" to suit and push the trend of"professionalism,specialization and expertization" of university counselors. In the beginning,when constructing university counselors' professionalism development system, to further clarity related concepts and trend, three systems are put forward. The first is the theoretical system from the aspects of "personnel professionalism, work professionalism and management professionalism",the second is the practical system in terms of "practical system,support system and training system",and the third is the cultural system including system culture,spiritual culture, material culture and behaviour culture. Meanwhile, when constructing scientific management system of university counselors, aspects such as management system,training and research, scientific evaluation, development ways and guarantee mechanism should be considered. Therefore, to push and ensure university counselors' sustainable development,systems of "scientific management,scientific training,scientific evaluation,scientific approaches and legalization guarantee" should be constructed to integrate university counselors,career development and the ideological and political education for university students as well as integrating the present situation of university counselors' career and their further motivation.